The interior arrangement of the Christian churches in
part imitated the temple at Jerusalem, in part proceeded directly, from
the Christian spirit. It exhibits, therefore, like the whole catholic
system, a mixture of Judaism and Christianity. At the bottom of it lay
the ideas of the priesthood and of sacrifice, and of fellowship with
God administered thereby.

Accordingly, in every large church after Constantine there were three main divisions, which
answered, on the one hand, to the divisions of
Solomon’s temple, on the other, to the three classes
of attendants, the catechumens, the faithful, and the priests, or the
three stages of approach to God. The evangelical idea of immediate
access of the whole believing congregation to the throne of grace, does
not yet appear. The priesthood everywhere comes between.

1. The portico: In this again must be
distinguished:

(a) The inner portico, a covered hall which
belonged to the church itself, and was called πρόναος, or commonly, from its long,
narrow shape,νάρθηξ, ferula, i.e., literally, staff, rod.11411141 Sometimes the narthex again was divided into
two rooms, the upper place for the kneelers (locus
substratorum), i.e., catechumens who might participate,
kneeling, in the prayers after the sermon (hence
genuflectentes, γονυκλίνοντεςand the lower place, bordering on
the outer portico, for mere hearers, Jews, and pagans (locus
audientium). The name paradise also
occurs, because on one side of the wall of the portico Adam and Eve in
paradise were frequently painted,—probably to signify
that the fallen posterity of Adam find again their lost paradise in the
church of Christ. The inner court was the place for all the unbaptized,
for catechumens, pagans, and Jews, and for members of the church
condemned to light penance, who might hear the preaching and the
reading of the Scriptures, but must withdraw before the administration
of the Holy Supper.

(b) The outer portico, αὐλή, atrium, also locus lugentium or
hiemantium, which was open, and not in any way enclosed within the
sacred walls, hence not a part of the house of God properly so called.
Here those under heavy penance, the “weepers”11421142 Flentes, hiemantes. as they were called, must tarry, exposed to all
weather, and apply with tears to those entering for their Christian
intercessions.

In this outer portico, or atrium, stood the
laver,11431143Κρήνη, cantharus,
phiala. in which, after
the primitive Jewish and heathen custom, maintained to this day in the
Roman church, the worshipper, in token of inward purification, must
wash every time he entered the church.11441144 In Num. xix. 2 ff.; xxxi. 19 ff. (comp. Heb.
ix. 13) the sprinkling-water, or “water of separation” (i.e., water of
purification, LXX.: ὕδωρ
ῤαντισμοῦ), already appears, prepared from the
ashes of the burned red heifer and water, and used for the cleansing of
those made unclean by contact with a corpse. The later Jews were very
strict in this; no one could appear in the temple or synagogue, or
perform any act of worship, prayer, or sacrifice, without being washed,
1 Sam. xvi. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 17. Therefore synagogues were built by
preference in the neighborhood of streams. The Pharisees were very
paltry and pedantic in the matter of these washings; comp. Matt. xv. 2;
Mark vii. 3; Luke xi. 38. The same custom of symbolical purification
before worship we find among the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Brahmans
(who ascribed to the water of the Ganges saving virtue), Greeks, and
Romans, and among the Mohammedans. At the entrance of every Turkish
mosque stands a large font for this purpose.

After about the ninth century, when churches were
no longer built with spacious porticoes, this laver was transferred to
the church itself, and fixed at the doors in the form of a holywater
basin, supposed to be an imitation of the brazen sea in the
priest’s court of Solomon’s temple.114511451 Kings vii. 23-26; 2 Chron. iv.
2-5. This symbolical usage
could easily gather upon itself superstitious notions of the magical
virtue of the holy water. Even in the pseudo-Apostolic Constitutions
the consecrated water is called “a means of warding off diseases,
frightening away evil spirits, a medicine for body and soul, and for
purification from sins;” and though these expressions related primarily
to the sacramental water of baptism as the bath of regeneration, yet
they were easily applied by the people to consecrated water in general.
In the Roman Catholic church the consecration of the water11461146Benedictio
fontis. is performed on Easter Sunday
evening; in the Greco-Russian church, three times in the year.

2. The temple proper,11471147Ναός. the holy place,11481148Ἱερόν.. or the nave of the church,11491149Ναῦς, navis
ecclesiae. Many derive this expression from a confusion of the
Greek ναόςwith ναῦς and navis. Not till the ninth and tenth
centuries is navis used in this way. The more exact equivalent
in English would be long-room, or hall. as it were the ark of the new covenant.
This part extended from the doors of entrance to the steps of the
altar, had sometimes two or four side-naves, according to the size of
the church, and was designed for the body of the laity, the faithful
and baptized. The men sat on the right towards the south (in the
men’s nave), the women on the left towards the north
(in the women’s nave), or, in Eastern countries, where
the sexes were more strictly separated, in the galleries above.11501150 Called ἐπερῶα, the elevated
galleries on the side walls. Besides this the women’s
places were protected by wooden lattices from all curious or lascivious
glances of the men. Chrysostomsays,
Homil. 74 in Matth.: “Formerly these lattices certainly did not exist;
for in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. iii. 28), and in
the time of the apostles men and women were together with one accord.
But then men were still men, and women were women; now women have sunk
to the level of prostitutes, and men are like horses in rutting.” A sad
commentary on the moral and religious condition of that
time! The monks and nuns, and the
higher civil officers, especially the emperors with their families,
usually had special seats of honor in semicircular niches on both sides
of the altar.

About the middle of the main nave was the pulpit
or the ambo,11511151Ἄμβων from ἀναβαίνω, pulpitum, suggestus. Hence the English
pulpit, while the corresponding German Kanzelis derived from
cancelli. or
subsequently two desks, at the left the Gospel-desk, at the right the
Epistle-desk, where the lector or deacon read the Scripture lessons.
The sermon was not always delivered from the pulpit, but more
frequently either from the steps of the altar (hence the phrase:
“speaking from the rails”), or from the seat of the bishop behind the
altar-table.11521152Βῆμα, exedra.

Between the reading-desks and the altar was the
odeum,11531153Ὠδεῖον.Subsequently
the singers were usually placed in the galleries of
upper-church. the place for the
singers, and at the right and left the seats for the lower clergy
(anagnosts or readers, exorcists, acolytes). This part of the nave lay
somewhat higher than the floor of the church, though not so high as the
altar-choir, and hence was also called the lower choir, and the
gradual, because steps (gradus) led up to it. In the Eastern church the
choir and nave are scarcely separated, and they form together the ναός, or temple hall; in the Western the choir
and the sanctuary are put together under the name cancelli or
chancel.

3. The most holy place,11541154Τὰ
ἅγια τῶν
ἁγίων, τὰ
ἄδυτα,
ἱερατεῖον,, sacrarium,
sanctuarium. or the choir proper;11551155Χορός,
βῆμα, (ascensus). called also in distinction from the lower choir,
the high choir,11561156 Hence the terms high mass, high
altar. for the
priests, and for the offering of the sacrifice of the Eucharist. No
layman, excepting the emperor (in the east), might enter it. It was
semi-circular or conchoidal11571157 Hence called also κόγχη, shell. in form, and was situated at the eastern end of
the church, opposite the entrance doors, because the light, to which
Christians should turn themselves, comes from the east.11581158 Thus so early as this was the line of east and
west established as the sacred (or church-building) line.
Yet there were exceptions. Socrates, H. E. v. 22, notes it as peculiar
in the church of Antioch, that the altar here stood not in the eastern
end, but in the western (οὐ γὰρ
πρὸς
ἀνατολὰς
τὸ
θυσιαστήριον,
ἀλλὰ πρὸς
δύσιν
ὁρᾷ). It was separated from the other
part of the church by rails or a lattice,11591159Ἀμφίθυρα,
κιγκλίδες,cancelli, whence the name
chancel. and by a curtain, or by sacred doors called in
the Greek church the picture-wall, iconostas, on account of the sacred
paintings on it.11601160 Eusebius mentions, in his description of the
church of the bishop Paulinus in Tyre, H. E. x. 4, an elegantly wrought
lattice, and Athanasius mentions the curtains. Indeed, the pictures
placed upon these curtains date back even to the fourth century, since
Epiphanius, Ep. ad Joann. Hierosolymit., inveighed against a painted
curtain in a village of Palestine. The lattice has perpetuated itself
to this day in the picture wall or iconostas (εἰκονόστασις) in the Russo-Greek church. It bears,
on the right the picture of Christ, and on the left that of the Virgin
Mary, and is pierced with three doors; the middle one, called the
Emperor’s gate (dweri Zarskija), because only the
emperor, besides the chief priest, may pass through it to take the holy
Supper, is decorated and distinguished with the utmost splendor;
oftentimes a golden sun with a thousand rays appears, which suddenly
separates during the worship, and discloses the altar; or a Mount Zion
with innumerable temples and battlements; or a network of golden
garlands of flowers and fruits, among which especially clusters of
grapes, probably with reference to the sacramental wine, frequently
occur. While
in the Eastern churches this screen is still used, it in time gave
place in the West to a low balustrade.

In the middle of the sanctuary stood the altar,11611161 Altare, mensa sacra, θυσιαστήριον,
ἁγία
τράπεζαThe altar-cloth, palla,
pallia, covers the whole upper face of the altar. This must not be
confounded with the corporale (εἴλητον,from εἰλέω, involvo),
i.e., a white linen cloth, with which the oblations
prepared upon the altar are covered. generally a table, or
sometimes a chest with a lid; at first of wood, then, after the
beginning of the sixth century, of stone or marble, or even of silver
and gold, with a wall behind it, and an overshadowing, dome-shaped
canopy,11621162Πυργος, tower;
κιβώριον(of doubtful origin), ciborium,
umbraculum. Subsequently the ciborium gave place to the steeple-shaped
tabernaculum for the preservation of the body of Christ. With
the ciborium the dove-shaped form of the receptacle for the body of
Christ (hence called περιστήριον) also gradually
disappeared. above which a
cross was usually fixed. The altar was hollow, and served as the
receptacle for the relics of the martyrs; it was placed, where this was
possible, exactly over the grave of a martyr, probably with reference
to the passage in the Revelation: “I saw under the altar the souls of
them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which
they held.”11631163Rev. vi. 9. In the Greek and Roman churches
every altar must contain some relics, be they never so
unimportant. Often a
subterranean chapel or crypt11641164Κρυπταί, memoriae, confessiones,
testimonia. was built under the church, in order to have the
church exactly upon the burial place of the saint, and at the same time
to keep alive the memory of the primitive worship in underground vaults
in the times of persecution.

The altar held therefore the twofold office of a
tomb (though at the same time the monument of a new, higher life), and
a place of sacrifice. It was manifestly the most holy place in the
entire church, to which everything else had regard; whereas in
Protestantism the pulpit and the word of God come into the foreground,
and altar and sacrament stand back. Hence the altar was adorned also in
the richest manner with costly cloths, with the cross, or at a later
period the crucifix, with burning tapers, symbolical of Christ the
light of the world,11651165 This usage also no doubt came from Judaism into
the Christian church; for in the temple at Jerusalem, and in the
tabernacle before it, a lamp was perpetually burning according to
divine command, Exod. xxvii. 30f. Probably lamps were in earlier use in
the church. But tapers also were already in use in the time
of Chrysostom, especially for lighting the altar, while
lamps were rather employed in chapels and before images of
saints. and
previously consecrated for ecclesiastical use,11661166 In the Roman church the second of February, or
the fortieth day after Christmas, when Mary presented the Lord in the
temple, and when the aged Simeon prophetically called the child Jesus
“a light to lighten the Gentiles,” is appointed for this consecration,
and is hence called Candlemas of Mary, a contraction of the two
names, Purification of Mary and
Candlemas. with a splendid copy of the Holy Scriptures, or
the mass-book, but above all with the tabernacle, or little house for
preserving the consecrated host, on which in the middle ages the German
stone-cutters and sculptors displayed wonderful art.

Side altars did not come into use until Gregory
the Great. Ignatius,11671167 He even expressly (Ep. ad Philad. c. 4) likens
the unity of the church in the episcopate to the unity of the
altar: Ἔν
θυσιαστήριον,
ὡς εἷς
ἐπίσκοπος.
Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, and Augustine
know of only one altar in the church. The Greek church has no more to
this day. The introduction of such side altars, which however belong
not to the altar space, but to the nave of the church, is connected
with the progress of the worship of martyrs and relics.

At the left of the altar war, the table of
prothesis,11681168Πρόθεσις.
oblationarium, still used in the
Greek church. on which the
elements for the holy Supper were prepared, and which is still used in
the Greek church; at the right the sacristy,11691169Σκευοφυλάκτιον,
διακονικόν, sacristia, sacrorum custodia,
salutatorium, etc. where the priests robed themselves, and retired
for silent prayer. Behind the altar on the circular wall (and under the
painting of Christ enthroned, if there was one) stood the
bishop’s chair,11701170Θρόνος, cathedra. overlooking the whole church. On both sides of
it, in a semicircle, were the seats of the presbyters. None but the
clergy were allowed to receive the holy Supper within the altar
rails.11711171 Before Ambrosethe emperors
were permitted to take their seats within the altar-space.
But Ambrose, with the approval of Theodosius, abolished
this custom, and assigned to the emperors a special place at the head
of the congregation, just outside the rails. Sozomen, H. E. vii.
25.

1141 Sometimes the narthex again was divided into
two rooms, the upper place for the kneelers (locus
substratorum), i.e., catechumens who might participate,
kneeling, in the prayers after the sermon (hence
genuflectentes, γονυκλίνοντεςand the lower place, bordering on
the outer portico, for mere hearers, Jews, and pagans (locus
audientium).

1144 In Num. xix. 2 ff.; xxxi. 19 ff. (comp. Heb.
ix. 13) the sprinkling-water, or “water of separation” (i.e., water of
purification, LXX.: ὕδωρ
ῤαντισμοῦ), already appears, prepared from the
ashes of the burned red heifer and water, and used for the cleansing of
those made unclean by contact with a corpse. The later Jews were very
strict in this; no one could appear in the temple or synagogue, or
perform any act of worship, prayer, or sacrifice, without being washed,
1 Sam. xvi. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 17. Therefore synagogues were built by
preference in the neighborhood of streams. The Pharisees were very
paltry and pedantic in the matter of these washings; comp. Matt. xv. 2;
Mark vii. 3; Luke xi. 38. The same custom of symbolical purification
before worship we find among the ancient Egyptians, Persians, Brahmans
(who ascribed to the water of the Ganges saving virtue), Greeks, and
Romans, and among the Mohammedans. At the entrance of every Turkish
mosque stands a large font for this purpose.

1149Ναῦς, navis
ecclesiae. Many derive this expression from a confusion of the
Greek ναόςwith ναῦς and navis. Not till the ninth and tenth
centuries is navis used in this way. The more exact equivalent
in English would be long-room, or hall.

1150 Called ἐπερῶα, the elevated
galleries on the side walls. Besides this the women’s
places were protected by wooden lattices from all curious or lascivious
glances of the men. Chrysostomsays,
Homil. 74 in Matth.: “Formerly these lattices certainly did not exist;
for in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. iii. 28), and in
the time of the apostles men and women were together with one accord.
But then men were still men, and women were women; now women have sunk
to the level of prostitutes, and men are like horses in rutting.” A sad
commentary on the moral and religious condition of that
time!

1151Ἄμβων from ἀναβαίνω, pulpitum, suggestus. Hence the English
pulpit, while the corresponding German Kanzelis derived from
cancelli.

1158 Thus so early as this was the line of east and
west established as the sacred (or church-building) line.
Yet there were exceptions. Socrates, H. E. v. 22, notes it as peculiar
in the church of Antioch, that the altar here stood not in the eastern
end, but in the western (οὐ γὰρ
πρὸς
ἀνατολὰς
τὸ
θυσιαστήριον,
ἀλλὰ πρὸς
δύσιν
ὁρᾷ).

1160 Eusebius mentions, in his description of the
church of the bishop Paulinus in Tyre, H. E. x. 4, an elegantly wrought
lattice, and Athanasius mentions the curtains. Indeed, the pictures
placed upon these curtains date back even to the fourth century, since
Epiphanius, Ep. ad Joann. Hierosolymit., inveighed against a painted
curtain in a village of Palestine. The lattice has perpetuated itself
to this day in the picture wall or iconostas (εἰκονόστασις) in the Russo-Greek church. It bears,
on the right the picture of Christ, and on the left that of the Virgin
Mary, and is pierced with three doors; the middle one, called the
Emperor’s gate (dweri Zarskija), because only the
emperor, besides the chief priest, may pass through it to take the holy
Supper, is decorated and distinguished with the utmost splendor;
oftentimes a golden sun with a thousand rays appears, which suddenly
separates during the worship, and discloses the altar; or a Mount Zion
with innumerable temples and battlements; or a network of golden
garlands of flowers and fruits, among which especially clusters of
grapes, probably with reference to the sacramental wine, frequently
occur.

1161 Altare, mensa sacra, θυσιαστήριον,
ἁγία
τράπεζαThe altar-cloth, palla,
pallia, covers the whole upper face of the altar. This must not be
confounded with the corporale (εἴλητον,from εἰλέω, involvo),
i.e., a white linen cloth, with which the oblations
prepared upon the altar are covered.

1162Πυργος, tower;
κιβώριον(of doubtful origin), ciborium,
umbraculum. Subsequently the ciborium gave place to the steeple-shaped
tabernaculum for the preservation of the body of Christ. With
the ciborium the dove-shaped form of the receptacle for the body of
Christ (hence called περιστήριον) also gradually
disappeared.

1163Rev. vi. 9. In the Greek and Roman churches
every altar must contain some relics, be they never so
unimportant.

1165 This usage also no doubt came from Judaism into
the Christian church; for in the temple at Jerusalem, and in the
tabernacle before it, a lamp was perpetually burning according to
divine command, Exod. xxvii. 30f. Probably lamps were in earlier use in
the church. But tapers also were already in use in the time
of Chrysostom, especially for lighting the altar, while
lamps were rather employed in chapels and before images of
saints.

1166 In the Roman church the second of February, or
the fortieth day after Christmas, when Mary presented the Lord in the
temple, and when the aged Simeon prophetically called the child Jesus
“a light to lighten the Gentiles,” is appointed for this consecration,
and is hence called Candlemas of Mary, a contraction of the two
names, Purification of Mary and
Candlemas.

1167 He even expressly (Ep. ad Philad. c. 4) likens
the unity of the church in the episcopate to the unity of the
altar: Ἔν
θυσιαστήριον,
ὡς εἷς
ἐπίσκοπος.

1171 Before Ambrosethe emperors
were permitted to take their seats within the altar-space.
But Ambrose, with the approval of Theodosius, abolished
this custom, and assigned to the emperors a special place at the head
of the congregation, just outside the rails. Sozomen, H. E. vii.
25.